Midterm: What is "Woman" to you?
(The QR code is updated, feel free to answer!)
In a patriarchal, men-centered, misogynistic world where men are at the center of almost everything, conscious or unconscious, to the point that a person's experiences may be tainted with the male perspective. Starting with the idea of "Man", man being a word for humanity, but what if we changed it to woman instead? With this being said, I wanted to challenge this, centering the title "Woman" and thinking outside of the patriarchy, stereotypes, autonomy, and what has been told is "Feminine or woman-ish". What does "Woman" mean to you? I've learned that there's so much that is "woman", maybe even more than there is "Man", that everyone, even outside of gender, outside of body, outside of system have embodied and been "woman".
It was about a month ago. I thought about “What does “woman” mean to me? Because as a white-trans individual (Genderfluid), my perspective and feelings of the title “woman” are different. Most folks around me are Cis-women, they just kind of know things when it comes to femininity and gender, it’s a non-negotiable for them. But I also thought how my sister would bark at my father if he was dramatic, stating “he's the woman in your marriage” to our Mom. Both of these things tie back to gender, the binary, stereotypes, and strangely back to men-centered thoughts. I wanted to ask what if we didn't center men, even within woman-like-attributes as if they are shameful, and especially redefine what the title “woman” is and what it could mean in the future, because “woman” is everything, its an energy we all have.
The goal of this project was genuine curiosity on what my peers thought of "woman", taking out the patriarchy and stereotypes and truly applying ourselves as individuals, folks having so many varying genders experiences and expressions, and also hoping to find a common ground together and bring a sense of positive unity in these trying times.
LINK: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ptLri-w1Prl32pdyuzLGtnZ_arjkpC2YJvTqPmsEgwk/edit?usp=sharing
To me, "Woman" is just a word or label that we assign to people, not just based on body parts or reproductive organs, but also on specific traits. We then expect the people we assign as "women" to exhibit those traits or perform the scripts that our society has established for that label. I support people who celebrate and reclaim their identity as women, and I also support those of us who challenge what it means to be a woman, and who refuse to be contained by a definition that feels more like a cage than a truth. I really loved your project, and thank you for making this! ✨✨✨
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